


Silent Shuffle

by nyanyanya22



Category: Daria (Cartoon)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:46:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23620279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyanyanya22/pseuds/nyanyanya22
Summary: We cannot speak, and yet we are here.
Kudos: 1





	Silent Shuffle

I remember when it all started. When I thought It was just me.

I popped into existence, knowing nothing, and yet everything. I knew my name, I was Dawn. I knew what I looked like.  
But, I didn't. No memory of where I was, how I had got there, or any past of any sort.  
Nothing, but black. Cold void. ...I guess I didn't know how lucky I was to have a cold void back then. It was lonely, but atleast it was comfortable.

I wandered. I wanted to find something. This wasn't right. It was open, cold, unloving, a colorless void that practically sucked the life out of all who entered. Then I found her. Her name was Scarlett. She was like me. Lost. Confused, looking for someone to talk to.  
Unfortunately, she knew no more then me. It was us versus the void.

It was nice talking to someone though. She seemed to be pretty good with jokes, although when I asked her where she had learned them she turned a blank. Nothing.

Around that time we met the others, Shaggy, the first male of our group, had a slight dialect to him. When we found him he was lying on the ground, curled in a ball, attempting to understand what was going on. Scarlett did her best to cheer the poor lad up.

Then, click. Suddenly a world of blurred color and imagery. Someone was singing. It was slurred, almost distant. Eventually it went quiet, but the blur of color remained. Then, I realized.  
I can't move. I felt as If I was a statue. Everything hurt.  
Until the blurriness cleared, so quick my head felt like it would burst.

Then, I could see. And for a second, just a second, I thought I was free from my prison.

But no.

Pain.  
Everything was pain.

I moved, but not of my own accord. I was being puppeteered, by whom, I don't know. It was the most painful experience I could imagine.  
I was in some sort of school, I could tell that much. I caught a glimpse of Scarlett, but I couldn't speak. I tried, but my mouth was sealed tight as a drum. I imagined the same was true for her. Every step was like It's own hell, and you couldn't even scream.

Then, back to the coloured blur. The pain was minimal here, so I took it as a chance to breathe. Not for long though, as as soon as it started, the painful puppeteer returned, and back to the shuffle I came.

I attempted to pay attention to what was going on around me, in a desperate attempt to alleviate the intense pain. Strangely enough only a few people ever seemed to be moving and speaking at a time, huge voids cutting off most of the area, It seemed to almost pop in and out of existence.

Some girl named Daria seemed to always be there, however.

* * *

Eventually, after the cycle of "Coloured Blurs" and "Painful forced movement", I was back to the void. We all were.

We cried. We all cried for a while. We all talked, but none of us could understand why this was happening.

It was around that time I met Andrea. A girl like no other. Probably the biggest optimist of us all. When we found her, she was shaken, but was trying to remain positive. The way her face lit up when she saw us was simply magical.  
She had nothing much to add, but we didn't really expect that at this point. Whatever force has trapped us here, none of us knew.

She...she had a way of speaking that gave us all that spark of hope. It made us all feel good.

Then the force came back, and the shuffle resumed.

* * *

Another cycle. It seemed this school was the center of our madness.  
Oddly enough, that Daria girl was still always the center of attention. Always present during the shuffle. She seemed to have gotten a friend, an artsy girl by the name of Lane, Jane Lane.  
Their conversations were a small pleasure in the sufferous shuffle, but we take what we can get.  
Apparently their was some sort of party going on, the pain ringing in my ear made it hard to listen.

Once the force relinquished It's hand on us, we could speak again.  
Shaggy seemed to have seen more then we did, having actually witnessed some of the party.  
I felt...almost envy, for some change of scenery then the same shuffling corridors and classrooms, but I suppose the less time the force has us the better. I should really count my blessings.

Andrea seemed to try to maintain her good spirit. With the occasional joke from Scarlett, it was like our own little party.  
Almost...happy.

But the force came back, and the shuffle resumed.

* * *

Andrea is gone.

For a while, we had maintained a sense of routine, the pain became numb over time. You simply learned not to feel, to save what little you had for when the shuffle was ended and the merciful void took us back.

This shuffle was short, shorter then usually. We considered it a blessing.  
When I came back, I had expected the same. I was in a different spot, having came back sooner, but I found the others quickly. We had a meeting point by that time. But Shaggy and Scarlett had a grim look on their faces.  
Andrea hadn't come back.  
Worse, Shaggy described seeing her, briefly. He was the last of us to return from that shuffle, I think the 5th.  
Andrea had spoken. She had actually talked. A speckle of hope hit me.  
But, when he continued, Shaggy made it clear. The... _thing_ , that had spoken, wasn't our Andrea.  
Not even close.

I...couldn't imagine how we would continue without her.

I spent the next shuffle thinking about her. Wondering If I'd ever see her again.  
Heh...It's almost funny. You can feel, almost comfortable in a situation. And then the force can take it away.

This force clearly has no soul, for it can only hurt. It is truly a wicked, heartless force, whatever it may be.

* * *

Andrea was back.

At the end of the next shuffle, she returned to us. Overjoyed, I ran towards her.  
But she, she was broken.  
Curled into a ball, crying more then any of us ever had.

After a few hours I eventually talked her into speaking.  
It wasn't pretty.

She described being sent somewhere else, instead of the blur. Then the force, the puppeteer, It took her.  
Not in the same way.

Crying, Andrea told us that her own thoughts had been taken. Not only her movement and speech, but her very _thoughts_. The force has not only stripped her of her freedom, but of the very thing that made her herself. Her memory, her thoughts, all corrupted by that force. That horrible force.

When she came back, she regained her freedom, but...that kinda damage doesn't heal. Andrea was never quite the same after that, even as she resumed the shuffle as usual, her joyful spirit seemed watered down, like a piece of her soul had been taken by the force and would never be returned.

* * *

Months.

It felt like months, perhaps years.  
Exactly how long we stayed in the void, the blur, the shuffle, it was never quite the same, but the cycle never stopped.  
We developed a system of subtle eye twitches, the only movement we could muster, and used it for rudimentary communication.  
It was crude, but it was all we had.

Slowly, we came to realize _she_ was the center of this. That girl, Daria. She was almost _ALWAYS_ present, and seemed to speak with the volume of 10 of the others. Her and her friend must be the key to this.

But we have no mouths to speak with. The force will not allow it.

We are unsure if she is one of us, if she is the force that cursed us, or if she is simply a innocent bystander.

We do not know.  
I do not know.

I just...wish I could warn her. Or at the very least, ask for help. To break this silent shuffle of suffering we must endure.

* * *

Something unnerved Daria.

She couldn't help, but notice the odd twitches of some of her classmates.  
They were quiet, never really spoke much, and she had no interest in interacting with them...but..  
She could swear there was a glimmer of sadness in their eyes.

Putting the thought out of her mind, Daria went to meet Jane.  
She was probably looking too deep into it anyway.


End file.
